Robert Peake

The Raleigh Review is a promising new online literary journal based out of Raleigh, North Carolina. My poem, “Las Vegas, Age Fifteen“, is currently featured as the poem of the week on their website, where you can hear me read it aloud. In addition to falling in love for the first time, at fifteen I also followed in my father’s footsteps by taking up tournament chess. With the help of an ambitious coach, I played most of the cash-prize tournaments in Las Vegas, winning a small amount of money, and coming dangerously close to a jackpot. I gave up after a year, and to this day I have a visceral aversion both to Las Vegas and to any form of competitive gaming. Still, the masculine angst, psychological warfare, and neon-light-induced migraines eventually made good fodder for a poem.